


The Dormouse's Demons

by DistortionSoul



Category: Mad T Party Band
Genre: Addiction, Alternate Universe, Angst, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi, Substance Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-09
Updated: 2014-02-09
Packaged: 2018-01-11 19:21:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1176914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DistortionSoul/pseuds/DistortionSoul
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For a while now, Thackery has been left to clean up after Mally and his drug abuse.  Now, though, the dormouse's excessive indulgence in the rockstar lifestyle may finally be catching up to him, and Thackery doesn't think he can just stand by and let it happen anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Dormouse's Demons

**Author's Note:**

> My very first Mad T Party fic, yaayyy!  
> AU-thing wherein they actually tour around to different venues like a regular band and, well, shit like this happens.  
> I'm so sorry for what I've done to these poor characters...

Thackery was still riding high off of the success of that night’s show as he sat at the bar along with his bandmates, each of them nursing their own drinks and their own smiles of post-show happiness.  Alice and Tarrant sat talking and laughing together a short ways away, Absolem sat contemplating his empty glass as he waited on the bartender for another, and Mally was already three shots into his celebration.  Chesh, meanwhile, was nowhere to be found, at least at first.

Then Thackery caught sight of him, sidling up to the bar and slipping Mally a small bag of acid-green pills.  The hare winced and looked away, instead seeking out Alice across the bar.  When he made eye contact, he asked her with a pleading look if he could spend the night on the rollaway bed in her and Tarrant’s hotel room, as he usually did when he was expecting Mally to spend the night high out of his mind on some new drug.  With pity in her eyes, the singer nodded agreement, and Thackery managed a small, pained smile of thanks.  He hated to intrude like this, but he had long since learned that it was less painful for all involved if he just avoided Mally when he was high.  And the hare could never quite manage to feel comfortable in the room that Absolem and Chesh shared, knowing that the cat was the one providing Mally with all his favorite illicit substances.

Heaving a deep sigh, all these thoughts running maddening circles in his head, the hare turned to the bartender and ordered a second drink.

*     *     *

The next morning, Thackery rose early and made his way to the hotel room that was supposed to have been his and Mally’s.  They had left the bar separately, and he wanted to make sure that his boyfriend had found his way back home last night - he usually did, but the bassist still always felt better when he had checked.

Inside the room, it became immediately clear that Mally had found his way home, and that he had found more than that along the way.  There were an array of pills, powders, and half-empty bottles of alcohol spread across the nightstand, no less than three used condoms among the discarded clothing on the floor, and two comatose bodies in the bed.

_Well, at least he’s still using protection,_ Thackery sighed to himself.  That was a good sign, he supposed.

But then he pulled back the bed sheets, and any trace of the grim hope that had risen within him froze in his chest.  The boy sleeping next to Mally was young - really young.  No older than fourteen or fifteen.  He’d seen Mally bring young fans to bed before - eighteen and nineteen, sure, but this kid...he was at the age where he should be just learning how to drive, how to kiss, how to ask someone out on a first date.  And instead here he was, naked and asleep next to a stranger after a night of drugs, hard liquor, and sex.

When at last he had pulled himself together, Thackery shook the boy awake - Mally, of course, barely noticed - and helped him as best he could in finding his scattered clothes.  Then, with the kid leaning heavily on Thackery’s arm for support, they made their way down to the lobby.  They had barely reached the sidewalk when the kid halted, mumbled, “Hold up man, I don’t feel too g-” and then threw up violently onto the pavement.  Thackery watched helplessly until he was done, then led the boy a short ways away so he could hail him a cab.

As he was helping the boy into the cab a few minutes later, he thought to ask, “Do you have any money on you?”  When the kid explained that he had spent his paycheck on tickets to the show, Thackery slipped him a few bills from his own wallet, praying that it would be enough to pay for his fare home.

*     *     *

The following night, after their next show in the next city - Thackery had lost track of exactly which city - the hare didn’t stumble from the bar until long after the rest of the band had returned to their hotel.  He wanted to be alone for a while, to spend the rest of the night with just the alcoholic buzz in his head, numb to his disgust and worry at Mally’s continued drug use.  The mouse had been using for quite some time - Thackery supposed it was just in his nature to succumb completely to every aspect of the rockstar life - but lately it had been getting worse.  More frequent use, higher doses, ever more powerful drugs that made his behavior more and more erratic.  It had become a minor miracle every time he showed up to a venue early enough for soundcheck.

Thackery stumbled stepping up onto a curb and had to grab for the tree in the street corner planter strip to keep himself from falling.  Huh.  Maybe the alcohol was effecting him more than he thought.  He hadn’t been properly drunk in a while, after all.

Managing to right himself again, the bassist made it the last block or two to the hotel without incident.  After an unsteady elevator ride and some fumbling with the key card, Thackery finally made it into his room - and nearly collided with Mally, who had for once made it back to the hotel first.

“Hey Thack,” he greeted the bassist.  “I was wondering when you’d make it back here.”  Then, noticing the hare’s condition, his expression morphed into one of surprise.  “Dude, are you drunk?  You’re never drunk.”

“Yeah, like you’re one to talk,” Thackery snapped back - though he was aware that the accusation lost some of its bite from the slurring of his speech.  “This is the first time you’ve been sober in, what?  A week?  Two?”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Mally demanded, immediately on the defensive.  “Thack, this doesn’t sound like you at all.  What’s wrong?”

“Oh, like you need to ask!” Thackery said, his voice rising now.  Where exactly did this mouse get off judging him for substance use?

“Thacky, what-?”

But Thackery had had just about enough of Mally’s obliviousness.  “Shut up!” he interrupted.  “Don’t you ‘Thacky’ me!  You know exactly what’s wrong - you are!  You’re always out, every night, high on whatever the fuck that cat-” he spat this last word like a pejorative “- gives to you, and I’m here not knowing if you’re gonna wake up stabbed in a gutter, or, or - or in bed with a fourteen-year-old!”

“I-” Mally looked truly shocked now.  Thackery had never confronted him like this before.  He had tried to politely intervene a few times when Mally had first started using, but the guitarist had always brushed him off, and eventually the bassist had fallen silent.  But now...  “Thack, I know how to stay safe out there.  And I...I mean yes, I’ve made mistakes, and maybe that kid was one of them, but I can take care of myself!”

“No, Mals, you can’t!” Thackery yelled, gesturing so wildly that he might have fallen if Mally hadn’t caught ahold of his arm.  “You are not taking care of yourself!  You hardly sleep, you don’t eat - you’re even playing worse than you used to...you’re barely holding it together!  You probably shouldn’t even be on this tour.”

Thackery had been vaguely hoping for remorse after this slurred little speech, or at least some acknowledgement from Mally of his inappropriate excess, but he was disappointed.  The guitarist’s reaction was, instead, one of indignation.  “What are you, my mom now?” he demanded, letting go of the bassist’s arm and recoiling from him.  “You gonna ground me?  What, send me home from the party early cuz I’m not being a good little boy?”

“No,” Thackery said, trying to assemble a response through the haze of alcohol in his mind.  “No, that’s not what I-”

“Oh no,” Mally cut across him.  “I think you made your meaning pretty clear.  You think because we’re together, you can just take away all my fun whenever you start feeling left out.  Well I’m telling you now, you can’t.  I’m an adult, I’m a rock star, and shit, dude, life is way too short not to enjoy that to the fullest!  I’m sorry you’re too much of a pussy to join in, but you are not gonna turn me into a tight-assed little prude too.”

That truly hurt, and Thackery felt his resolve imploding.  He had exhausted all the words his booze-muddled brain could muster, and he didn’t think he could bear to stick around and keep being insulted by the man he loved more than anything else in the world.  “Fine, whatever,” he said, his voice quieter now.  “If you wanna kill yourself, fine, not my problem.  But I’m not gonna stick around and watch you do it.”  And with that, he turned back toward the hotel room door.

“Wait, Thacky, I didn’t mean-” Mally called after him, but the hare was already halfway out into the hall.

“I’m gonna go see if I can sleep in Tarrant and Alice’s room again,” he said, and closed the door behind him.

 

Inside the hotel room, Mally stared blankly at the door for a long time, the argument replaying over and over in his head.  Finally, he turned slowly toward the night stand nearest him and picked up the bag of bright green pills resting there.  He gazed at them for a long moment too, before spilling a few onto his palm, placing one on his tongue, and washing it down with a long pull from the bottle of vodka he had also set on the nightstand.  Then, already anticipating the numbing, cushioning high of the drug, he swallowed another pill.  And then another.

*     *     *

Thackery was forced into consciousness the next day by Alice and Tarrant getting up and opening the curtains.  The sunlight streaming in was like a knife through Thackery’s vision.  With a groan of protest, the hare rolled away from the window, pulling the blankets up over his head as he did so.

But his dark, cool sanctuary under the covers was shattered a moment later, by Tarrant practically shouting at him, “Rise and shine bunny!  Time for another day on the road.”

“Not so loud, K?” Thackery groaned, his head set to pounding by the combination of light and noise.

“What’s the matter bud?” Tarrant asked, just as loudly.  “Had a bit more than you could handle last night?”

Thankfully, just then Alice appeared to smack her boyfriend sharply over the head and hand Thackery a cup of coffee.  “Ignore him,” she murmured, her voice blessedly soft in Thackery’s ringing ears.  “He’s trying to cheer you up by joking about it.  But sometimes-” here she shot the other singer a sour look “-he doesn’t realize it’s not appropriate.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Thackery whispered, his head cradled in one hand while he held his coffee in the other.  This was the part of drinking that he always chose to forget about - the entirely unpleasant aftermath.  He fucking hated hangovers.  He felt like he was learning what it would be like to have a wrecking ball for a head.  A wrecking ball that could feel pain - a lot of pain.

However, once he could raise his head out of his hands for long enough, Thackery forced himself to drink his coffee, and he began to feel better.  It tasted terrible, but at least he felt a bit more like himself.  Between that and Alice’s gentle coaxing, the hare was able to make it down to their tour bus with relatively little trouble.  He just hoped the rest of the band wasn’t feeling too boisterous today.

In fact, when Thackery climbed into the front lounge, it was to find Mally sitting alone and silent on one of the couches.  When he saw the hare come in, the mouse got up hurriedly and ducked through the door to the bunks, leaving a cold, silent tension in his wake.  Thackery sank into the couch opposite where his boyfriend had just sat, physically and emotionally exhausted from the events of the last several hours.

Alice came and sat beside him, while Tarrant headed for the small kitchen area of the lounge.  Apparently they were the last ones to board the bus, because a minute later the engine started, and Thackery felt the familiar sway of the bus starting to move.  The hare’s thoughts were elsewhere, though - through the door to the bunks, with his boyfriend, who was probably even now under the influence of those green pills.  He briefly considered going back there to find Mally, to confront him again or to try to apologize for last night, he wasn’t sure.  But that would probably do nothing more than start another fight, and Thackery didn’t think he could take that, not with his head still pounding the way it was, and certainly not cooped up on this bus for the next several hours.

Just then Tarrant pulled Thackery out of his miserable thoughts with a plate piled high with food assembled from the bus’s small fridge.  “Here,” the singer said, “it’ll make you feel better.”

“Thanks,” Thackery murmured, taking the proffered plate, knowing that Tarrant was trying to make up for his inappropriate jokes earlier.  And though the bassist’s stomach did growl appreciatively at the sight of all that food, he could only bring himself to nibble slowly at it.  He was just too preoccupied with Mally.

“Don’t worry about him,” Alice said, as if reading Thackery’s thoughts.  “He’ll come around by show time.  He always does.”

“He always has in the past, yeah,” Thackery protested, in no mood for Alice’s eternal optimism at the moment.  “But what if this is the time he doesn’t?  He’s been getting worse, I know you’ve seen it.  He’s using more, he’s disappearing more, he’s playing shows high more and more often...and it’s not like I’m doing a damn thing to help.  He was actually sober last night, for the first time in ages, and what do I do?  I fucking go and yell at him about it.  He’s probably high right now just because of me.”

“Thack, look,” Tarrant spoke up from the couch where he had sat down across from them, “there’s only so much you can do.  He’s made his decisions, and if he’s decided he doesn’t want your help, there’s not much you can do about that.”

“But there has to be something!” Thackery insisted, unwilling to believe that, not yet.  “He’s my boyfriend - and he’s your bandmate!  There has to be _something_ we can do.”

“Hey, we’ll figure something out,” Alice assured him.  “We’re here for you, Thack.  Aren’t we?” And here she shot a sharp look at Tarrant, who nodded quickly.  “Of course we are,” he agreed.

But the bassist couldn’t bring himself to reply to either of them.  He knew they were both trying, in their own ways, to help him, just as they had been for years, but nothing worked, nothing changed.  Mally kept using, Chesh kept dealing to him, and Thackery and the rest of the band kept worrying, doing their best to pick up the guitarist’s slack, and hoping someday, somehow, something would happen to make him change.

*     *     *

Sitting in the green room before the show that night, Thackery’s leg was bouncing uncontrollably in the universal gesture of stress and worry.  Any residual discomfort from his hangover was largely forgotten as he glanced repeatedly at the door leading from the green room to the performers’ entrance to the venue.  He was hoping that, any moment, Mally would appear through it and he would be able to relax a bit.  As soon as they’d arrived at the venue, Mally had hurried off the bus - looking distinctly unsteady on his feet - and disappeared, leaving the rest of the band to load in and soundcheck his equipment for him.  Thackery had tried repeatedly to reach his boyfriend on his cell phone, but he wasn’t answering.  So there was nothing for it now but to wait and hope that they would have a guitarist for the show that night.

At long last, just as a stage tech was leaving after giving them the five-minute warning before they were due onstage, Mally stumbled through the door into the green room.  His hair was mussed up into a pale imitation of his usual onstage hairstyle, his stage outfit rumpled and hanging wrong on his thin body.  What worried Thackery the most, though, were the glassy, bloodshot eyes looking at him from beneath the mouse’s thick, smudged eyeliner.  He had never seen Mally’s eyes look like that before; they put Thackery in mind of a horror movie zombie, a half-dead creature that had just crawled out of a grave or a gutter.  _Probably not a completely inaccurate comparison,_ the hare mused to himself.

Then, gathering himself, Thackery stood up to catch Mally as as the mouse nearly tripped over his own scuffed combat boots.  Mally seemed to take a moment to realize that someone else was now supporting his weight, but then slowly raised his gaze up, where it eventually settled on Thackery’s face.  “Heyyyyy you...” the guitarist slurred, a lazy smile working its way across his face.  Apparently he was too far gone on whatever drug he had taken to remember that he was mad at his boyfriend.

“Where the hell were you?” Thackery demanded, but before Mally could answer, the stage tech returned to tell them it was show time.  But Thackery didn’t budge.  “Wait,” he said, “Mally, you can’t go on like this.  We need to call this show off - you need to lie down until this wears off.”

“What?  No,” the guitarist protested, forcing himself upright and pulling his arm out of the bassist’s grasp.  “I’m...I’m good...I got this..”  As he spoke, he took a few stumbling steps toward the stage entrance, bracing himself along the way on a table, a couch, whatever he could reach .  However, he did manage to pick up his guitar from its stand near the stage entrance, and its familiar weight around his neck did seem to steady him a bit.  But Thackery still wasn’t convinced.

The hare looked beseechingly around at the rest of his bandmates, hoping they would back him up, help him get Mally out to the bus so he could sleep whatever this was off.  Alice looked inclined to agree with him; her face was contorted in worry as she looked from Thackery to Mally to the rest of the band, as if waiting for their approval before she voiced her opinion.  Tarrant and Absolem, meanwhile, looked much less decisive, and Chesh was carefully avoiding the hare’s gaze.

However, in the end it was Tarrant that made the final decision.  “Sorry Thack,” he shrugged apologetically at the bassist, “but the crowd’s out there waiting for us to go on.  It’s kinda too late to cancel now.  Let’s just get through this one set and then we can figure things out, OK?”

Thackery didn’t like it, but he had no choice but to sigh and assent.  He obviously couldn’t count on his band for support right now, as much as he needed it.

“Good man,” Mally said, making a sloppy gesture of camaraderie at Tarrant before disappearing through the stage door, followed by the cat, the caterpillar, and one very dejected, worried hare.

Thackery was glued to Mally’s side as much as he could possibly manage as the show commenced, hovering over the mouse as closely as possible without getting in his way, and having several times to rush in and catch him with an elbow or a shoulder when Mally looked to truly be in danger of losing his balance.  The hare even abandoned his usual joking flirtations with Alice, so preoccupied was he with his boyfriend’s predicament.  And meanwhile, Mally was using the other members of the band to help prop himself up as well, even leaning on petite Alice more than a few times when he began to lose his balance.

Although he and the rest of the band tried his best to make all their collisions and leaning against each other look like just an extra dose of physical comedy, and Mally was playing just well enough to keep the songs going, Thackery knew that devoted fans would be able to tell that something was off.  Yes, Mally had gone onstage under the influence in the past, but never had they attempted a show with the guitarist this doped up.

 

Eventually, Mally leaned up against Thackery so hard that the bassist actually staggered sideways a step before steadying himself.  When he did, it quickly became obvious that the guitarist was no longer capable of supporting his own weight, and was a few seconds from dragging Thackery to the floor with him.  So, widening his stance, the bassist had no choice but to make it a joke - pulling faces for the benefit of the crowd as he did his best to make the guitarist’s descent onto the stage a gentle one.

Once there, he stayed down for a moment or two, letting the first few rows of the crowd snap some pictures before standing back up again.  Mally, however, stayed down.  Still doing his best to keep up a comical front, but by now fighting panic, Thackery gently nudged the guitarist with his foot a few times, hoping to coax him out of his stupor.  But when he got absolutely no response, and then realized that Mally was no longer even playing his guitar, Thackery dropped all pretense, pulling off his bass and setting it hastily down as he knelt over his boyfriend.

“Mally!” he cried, taking hold of the guitarist’s face between his hands.  Mally’s jaw was slack, his glazed eyes staring, unseeing, up at the ceiling, and for one horrible, gut-wrenching moment Thackery thought he was dead.  But then he leaned down to rest one ear against the guitarist’s chest and heard his heart still beating.  The rhythm was disturbingly erratic, but at least he was still alive.

Thackery didn’t notice that the music had stopped completely until Tarrant and Absolem were gathered around him, helping to pull Mally upright and get his guitar off of him.  The hare was oblivious to the concerned murmurings that had, by now, begun to rise from the crowd, was barely aware that he kept yelling, “Mal!  Mally!  Wake up, dammit!”

 

The wait for the ambulance felt eternal, and when it finally got there, Alice had to physically pull Thackery off of Mally so the paramedics could attend him.  The bassist reached blindly for the singer, clung to her as she wrapped her arms protectively around him.  When a paramedic asked Thackery if Mally had taken any recreational drugs, the hare could only nod and say, “But I don’t know what.  He uses a bit of everything.”

The paramedic nodded and, without missing a beat, turned to the others and instructed, “Check his pockets.  He might still have some of it on him.”

Thackery was surprised at the medic’s composure, until he realized that, working at the hospital closest to this venue, they probably dealt with a lot of cases like this.

When at last Mally was lifted onto a stretcher and loaded into the back of the ambulance, Thackery suddenly couldn’t bear to let go of Alice, to be alone with the medics and his stricken boyfriend.  “Would you come with me?” he asked Alice in a choked whisper; she nodded immediately.  And so the ride to the hospital passed, Thackery clinging to Alice’s hand for dear life, jaw clenched, eyeliner-blackened tears running silently down his face.

Once at the hospital, Mally was rushed to the ER, the paramedics babbling out their report to the doctors as they went.  As much as Thackery wanted to follow them, to stay by Mally’s side through every moment of the treatment, he was too numb with shock and worry to protest being led away to the couch in the corner of a nearby waiting room.  As he went to sit down, his legs suddenly gave out, and he half-fell onto the sagging cushions.  Alice perched beside him, cupping one of his hands in both of her own as they waited for news, or for the rest of the band to arrive.

As it turned out, the latter happened first, and as soon as she saw Tarrant leading the other musicians down the hall toward them, Alice jumped up and ran to him.  The tall singer opened his arms to his girlfriend, and they shared a fierce hug and a long kiss by way of greeting.  Thackery understood - sickness and tragedy always bred the need to cling to healthy loved ones - but the sight still sent a stab of loneliness through him.  He would give anything to be kissing Mally like that, to feel the mouse’s arms around him, reassuring him that he was going to be alright.

He barely noticed Absolem sitting down beside him until the lanky keyboardist put an arm around him.  But then the hare clung to the caterpillar for a long moment, grateful for any shred of comfort he could get.  When they pulled apart, Thackery looked up to see Chesh lingering awkwardly above them, waiting to offer his own consolation.  However, a glare from Thackery sent him to a chair across the waiting room from them, understanding perfectly the reason for the rejection.  Even now Thackery felt a faint twinge of guilt at his own anger, but he couldn’t help but blame Chesh for this.  He didn’t see how the drummer could keep enabling Mally’s addiction like this, seeking out the most exciting new drugs everywhere they went, knowing full well how the guitarist would abuse them.

A moment later, Alice and Tarrant sat down across from Absolem and Thackery, their hands resting between them in a nest of interlaced fingers, conveying with silent looks their own worry for their fallen bandmate.

 

That was how the doctor found them what felt like an eternity later, all sitting in a circle except for the shunned cat, who had stayed in his corner.  Everyone stood up when the doctor approached, Thackery leading the pack toward her, desperate for news.

Something in the hare’s expression must have tipped her off that he was the one closest to her patient, because she directed her report to him.  “The good news is, he’s stabilized.  We were able to pump his stomach and get the worst of the drugs out.”  Thackery let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding in.  “But his overall condition is not looking good.  His immune system has been severely weakened from chronic substance abuse, and this latest drug, especially in the high dosage he took, is particularly dangerous.  We’ve been seeing a number of serious cases related to it - even fatal organ failure in some extreme cases.  You’re lucky we were able to get to him in time.”

Thackery’s head was spinning, relief and disbelief warring for supremacy in his mind.  He had been able to tell it was serious, but...it began to hit him just how close a brush with death Mally may have just had.  And suddenly the hare felt like he couldn’t bear to be away from his boyfriend even a moment longer.  He needed to see him, to hold him...  “How soon can he have visitors?” Thackery asked.

“Soon,” the doctor assured him.  “There are a few more tests we need to run to make absolutely certain he’s stable, but someone should be out to bring you to him shortly.”

As the doctor took her leave, Thackery slumped into the chair nearest him, the rest of his band gathered around him to assure him how lucky Mally had been, how fortunate that this had happened here, with a hospital so close by...but the bassist wasn’t listening.  He was still absorbing all that the doctor had told him.  That Mally’s overdose could easily have proved fatal...that the mouse was barely in his mid twenties and he was already causing serious damage to his body because of his substance abuse...and that whatever Chesh had given him could have been the final tip over the edge that Mally had been flirting with for so long...

Chesh.

Suddenly, all of Thackery’s stormy, disjointed thoughts congealed into a burning hot rage, directed squarely at the cat.  Barely even aware of what he was doing, Thackery pushed aside his bandmates’ comforting gestures and got up, whirling to face the drummer, who was still seated in the far corner of the room.

“You!” Thackery exclaimed, advancing on Chesh, who stood up as well at the rage in the bassist’s voice.  “You asshole!  What did you give him?”  By then Thackery had reached Chesh, and grabbed him by the collar of his jacket, slamming him back against the waiting room wall with the sheer force of his forward momentum.  “What the hell did you give Mally, you fucking -?!  You could’ve killed him!  You knew this was gonna happen eventually!  You knew he was a time bomb just waiting to go off, but you just kept lighting that fucking fuse, didn’t you?  Why, huh?  Why the hell did you -?”

But by now the rest of the band had obviously gotten over their shock at seeing the usually meek Thackery so physically aggressive, because Tarrant and Absolem were pulling the bassist and drummer apart.  Although Thackery kept spitting abuse at Chesh, he could feel tears threatening again, and soon all the fight had left him as quickly as it had taken him over.  He fell silent, and slumped against Tarrant, who had begun dragging him bodily back to the other side of the waiting room.  A moment later, after making sure that Thackery really was done trying to attack Chesh, Tarrant let the hare go.

Just then two burly orderlies, who had obviously been called over by the scuffle, appeared and asked if everything was alright.  Not wanting to jeopardize his chances of being allowed to visit Mally later, Thackery quickly assured them that it was.  After glancing around at the rest of the band for confirmation, the orderlies disappeared.

Tarrant returned to where Alice had hung back to watch the exchange, while Absolem chose to stay seated next to Chesh, as if acting as his body guard in case Thackery decided to go after him again.  And Thackery, his anger now soured into a profound shame at his outburst, and a renewed worry about Mally’s condition, retreated to the couch that he had originally occupied.  Here he sat in the very furthest corner, drawing his booted feet up onto the seat in front of him and wrapping his arms around his knees.  Curled into the smallest shape he could possibly make, he succumbed again to the tears that threatened to wash away the last of his makeup.

And that was how the nurse found them when he came in to tell them that Mally was awake, and that as long as they promised to stay calm and quiet, they could go see him.

*     *     *

Thackery led their small party into the hospital room where Mally lay, hooked up to an IV drip as well as several beeping monitors.  He was now dressed in a hospital gown, his stage outfit folded neatly on top of his nightstand, his boots standing against the wall beside it.  Though still unnaturally pale, his eyes still sunken and bloodshot, the mouse looked significantly better than when he had been brought in.  He was lucid, too, smiling when he saw his boyfriend.  “Hey, Thack Attack,” Mally greeted him with the familiar nickname, moving to sit up in the bed.

Thackery rushed to the bedside to stop him.  “Don’t you dare move,” the hare said, grasping one of Mally’s hands in both of his own, not even bothering to pull up a chair as he knelt beside the bed.

“Well, if you insist,” Mally replied, his voice weak but still relentlessly upbeat.  “I suppose if there’s one person in the world who I’m willing to stay lying on my back for, it’s you, Thacky.”

Thackery laughed despite himself, feeling his face heating.

“Nice to know I can still make you blush, even after a near-death experience,” Mally quipped, drawing a collective chuckle from the rest of the band.

They all stayed there for a while longer, chatting and exchanging plentiful smiles and jokes of sheer relief that their bandmate would live to play another show.  Eventually a chair was pulled up for Thackery, while the rest of the band stood around the bed in an almost protective semi-circle.  For a while the horror and anger and sadness of the past few hours was forgotten, and they were simply the tight-knit family that any band becomes on the road, celebrating that one of them was, for the moment at least, going to be alright.

At length, Tarrant stepped out of the room to begin making the necessary phone calls to cancel the last leg of the tour - over Mally’s protestations that he was fine, that he could handle it - and the others soon followed him out, giving Mally and Thackery a chance for a private reunion.

The two were quiet for a long moment as the celebratory mood left with the rest of the band, and Thackery’s thoughts sobered.  Finally, with a deep breath to steady himself, he broached the subject that had been gnawing at the back of his mind through the whole reunion.  “You know what this means, Mals,” he said.

“Yeah,” Mally smiled, attempting to keep the earlier lighthearted mood afloat, “it means free laundry and hospital pudding for the next couple days.”

“I’m serious Mally,” Thackery insisted, and when the smile had faded from his boyfriend’s face, continued, “This means you need to quit.  No more drugs - they’re quite literally killing you.”

“Thack, I -” Mally started, but must have seen something in the other man’s eyes that made him fall silent.  “I just...don’t know if I can.  I don’t know if I’m strong enough to go back to living life sober.”

“That’s what you have me for, Mals,” Thackery said, giving Mally’s hand a gentle squeeze.  “I’ll be strong for both of us.  Lord knows I’ve had enough practice at that over the past couple years...”

At this, Thackery saw something crack in his boyfriend’s eyes, and knew the discussion was over for now.  “No promises,” Mally said softly.  “Let’s just get through the next few days, get home, and then we’ll see.”

It wasn’t much, but for the moment Thackery could agree to that.  He knew they would both have a difficult road ahead of them if Mally really did try to get clean, but for now, the day had been a victory, and Thackery was willing to let it remain so.  And suddenly, the stress and extreme emotions of the last few days all came crashing down on him at once, and all he wanted to do was curl up with his boyfriend and sleep it all off.  So, not even bothering to remove his shoes first, the hare climbed into the hospital bed and did just that.


End file.
